In order to track browser-level data, marketers, vendors, and any web-based systems rely on a piece of data, known as a cookie, that is stored on the computer that executes a web request from a browser for many tracking and measurement activities. Cookies are text files that contain information used by web browsers. When a party owns a Property and downloads and stores (drops) a cookie on someone visiting the Property (e.g. The New York Times drops a cookie on a user when the user visits The New York Times website), that cookie is a 1st-party cookie. When a third party firm, such as an advertiser, drops a cookie on the user when they visit The New York Times website, that cookie is considered a 3rd-party cookie.
Some browsers do not accept cookies, either by default or due to consumer privacy settings. While not accepting cookies does affect the ability of 1st-parties to drop cookies, it has a particularly adverse impact on the ability of third parties to drop cookies and track consumer behavior. Furthermore, it appears likely that browsers may soon block 3rd-party cookies. Thus, it is desirable to provide a system and method that allows a third party to drop a cookie on a computer (as a first party) so that the third party can track the user.
An example of a third party who would like to be able to track a user are advertisers. Over the course of history, advertisers have invested dollars in advertising, regardless of their ability to track the effects of their efforts. As advertising began shifting from print to digital, the ability to track consumer behavior improved as well. For example, advertisers began to measure television exposure through household tracking efforts via Nielsen panels, or viewership penetration directly through cable boxes. With the addition of web-based marketing opportunities, including search, email, affiliate and display, web-based tracking efforts became focused on browser-level data as contrasted with household-specific information.
Today, traditional web technology vendors mainly employ 3rd-party cookies. Of prior known technology attempts to develop a 1st-party cookie by a 3rd-party web technology vendor (i.e. Google, Dotomi (now VCLK), Omniture), all involve either working with a property owner/advertiser to allow for the technology to create a general 1st-party cookie, or one based on a subdomain such as vendor.marketer.com. These solutions improve the web technology vendors ability to track within the constraints of the site within which data is being collected. However, this solution fails with respect to acquiring global access to data. That is, these solutions do not allow for the identifier and data captured to be read outside of the site within which data was originally collected.